Unwrapping Mr. Roth (13 page)

Dear Reader,

The novella
Unwrapping Mr. Roth
was initially released back in 2012 through a now-closed publisher and under the title
Mrs. Roth’s Merry Christmas
. This version of the story is more or less the same, plot-wise, but with some major structural differences. Not only do we get to hear from Nick in this expanded version, but I nudged the story more tidily into the Hearth Motel/Afótama Legacy world.

That means you will
absolutely
see the characters from
Unwrapping
again. In fact, Eldora shows up in the next Hearth Motel installment
Knight in Leather
with Kori, and Kori…well.

You’ll see.

The Afótama Legacy, Hearth Motel, and Norseton Wolves stories are set on a single timeline and share characters. You can read each series on its own, but you’ll understand all the nudge-nudge, wink-winks if you read them all in order.

Suggested Reading Order:

The Viking Queen’s Men
(The Afótama Legacy #1)

The Chieftain’s Daughter
(The Afótama Legacy #2)

Prince in Leather
(Hearth Motel #1)

Unwrapping Mr. Roth
(standalone)

Viking’s Pride
(The Afótama Legacy #2.5)

Viking Flame
(The Afótama Legacy #3)

Knight in Leather
(Hearth Motel #2 - coming April 2016)

The Viking’s Witch
(The Afótama Legacy #3.5 - coming 2016)

Norseton Wolves

Beast

Loner

Idler

Scion

Maker

-Coming in 2016-

Elder

Scout

Seer

***The Norseton Wolves novellas can be read at any point after
The Chieftain’s Daughter
, or on their own.***

Turn the page for a peek at
Knight in Leather
. Before you do, be sure to subscribe to my
paranormal romance newsletter
so you’ll receive a notification when the next Afótama Legacy, Norseton Wolves, or Hearth Motel story is available.

Dasha Maurice isn’t in the market for a serious relationship, much less one with one of the leather-wearing fairies residing at her best friend’s beach motel. Sure, Ethan Gotch is built like a linebacker and tongue-numbingly sexy, but he’s also a smidge intense and has a pesky ex who insists he’s her fated mate.

He’s not. He’s Dasha’s.

Being the only human in the fairy clique makes Dasha the perfect little soldier to play messenger in the fairy realm. She can’t be detected by raging Queen Rhiannon’s magic, and can help pull more oppressed Sídhe to freedom. The realm is collapsing and the people need a way out.

When Ethan’s ex pulls a stunt causing Dasha to get stuck in the realm, she starts to believe she was right keeping her distance from the fairy, but that’s the least of her concerns. If Dasha can’t accept what it means to be the mate of a shapeshifting fairy knight and work a little magic of her own, the two may never make it home alive.

___

From Chapter Nine

At sound of the newcomer’s voice, Dasha and Simone both stood.

The tall, lithe, nymph glided into the room. At least, she
seemed
to be gliding. Eldora was probably walking normally enough, but her movements were so graceful that she maneuvered more like tall leaf being blown than like any bipedal creature Dasha had ever seen.

Eldora waved them to sit, and moved slowly to the sideboard. “You don’t have to stand for me. I didn’t enjoy the fuss even when I was queen.”

Dasha and Simone sat, sharing a look.

Eldora poured herself a drink, then held up the decanter of golden liquid to the ladies. “Not sure what the hour is in your time zone. Too early to indulge?”

“It’s never too early,” Simone said. “I gave up on the five o’clock rule months ago.”

Eldora chuckled and splashed some whiskey into another glass. “Probably around the same time you found yourself in the company of a certain prince.”

“I imagine that’s widely known now, huh?”

“No, I didn’t know until Hestia told me.” Eldora furrowed her brow and carried the glass to Simone. “I hadn’t seen her in more years than I can recall, but what’s a year to a goddess, I suppose?” She turned to Dasha. “For you, dear?”

Dasha shrugged again. “Sure, why not? I’ll probably be less inclined to ask ignorant questions if I have a bit of booze in me.”

“Nothing wrong with asking questions.” Eldora glided back to the sideboard. “I have to keep reminding my daughter-in-law of that. She’s still trying to settle in here. She’s only been with us since Christmas.”

“About as long as I’ve been with Heath, then,” Simone said.

“Yes. I imagine you and Gillian have experienced a similar sort of adjustment. And I’m so sorry she’s not here to meet with you today. She and Nicholas are cleaning up some of the upheaval from during the long period when we didn’t have a king, and they’re away from the compound often. Kori is here, though. I’m certain she’d like to chat. She does so enjoy conversing with people from your realm.” Eldora cringed and shook her head once. “My apologies—I mean from out in the open. I have difficulty remembering that we no longer dwell in the magic realm.”

“Yes, about that—” Simone said. “That’s why we’re here, I think. Realm relocation.”

Eldora bobbed her white-blond eyebrows and grinned openly at them. “May I call Kori?”

“Uh. Sure. I guess.”

“She’ll be so pleased. My granddaughter is always at a loss for what to do when Gillian’s not here.”

“Won’t this discussion bore her?”

“Why? Are you boring?”

Dasha suppressed a snort.

Eldora had asked the question so flatly that the delivery had an unintended comic effect.

“I try hard not to be,” Simone said.

Eldora handed Dasha a drink and moved toward the door. “I’ll be right back. The intercom is on the fritz again. I’ll need to send this guard down to fetch her. Forgive me. Just one moment.” She hurried into the hallway, and the heels of her unseen shoes click-clacked against the stone floor as she went. She was wearing a plain, but pretty, floor-length dress under her cloak, and probably needed all that fabric to stay warm. The palace was drafty.

Dasha cut Simone a searching look. “So, where’s
your
palace, Princess?”

“My palace is called the Hearth Motel, and it’s currently overrun with fairies and frat boys.”

Dasha snapped her fingers. “Damn. I’m gonna get rid of that reservation for that party of nine for you. Just wait.”

“I wish. You know the rules. I can’t deny anyone hospitality.”

“But you
can
make them change their minds about being there. Remember—as good as I am at talking people into things, I’m just as good at talking them out of them. And since we’re here sitting and waiting, why don’t you tell me what your plans for the motel are? I’ll tell you what I had in mind for your marketing.”

Simone swirled the ice around her glass and put her spine against the seat back. “You know, I don’t have plans. I just go with the flow. Siobhan has plans, and I let her do what she wants because having dominion over some small thing makes her happy.”

“That’s nice of you.”

Simone turned her hands over in one of those
eh
gestures. “The crew has been on the road for so long, and they can’t exactly go back to the realm. People need to feel like they’re knitted into things and that they have a place to belong to. I think those fairies need a place to roost more than anyone.”

“It’s a shame they feel like they can’t go home. They must miss their families.” Dasha didn’t see hers very often, but just enough. She took for granted being able to fly home and see them whenever she got a whim to do so. She wondered what Ethan’s family must have been like.

Do they miss him? How do they feel about him being in Heath’s crew?

She couldn’t imagine her child being an entire realm away and working a job that required sword handling. In fact, the thought made her stomach lurch, and she didn’t even
have
kids yet.

“Some do. Some don’t,” Simone said. “Caryl and Daryn miss their family a lot. Perry gets homesick, too, but besides Matt, he’s the youngest, so that’s expected. Perry’s only got his grandmother out here, and she’s staying with the Afótama for the time being. Gareth is glad to be away from his family. They sold him to Rhiannon.”

Dasha’s jaw dropped.

“Yeah, but look at how that’s backfiring on them now,” Simone said. “Gareth is such a loner that he’s more or less ambivalent about the estrangement.”

“What about Ethan?”

Simone’s smile was soft as she swirled her drink. “I think…them being safe and unaffected by his actions are important to him. He’s motivated to get them out. He doesn’t get to see them, obviously. Has to rely on secondhand word to know how they are.”

Dasha twiddled the ends of her scarf and stared at the cracks in her whiskey’s ice. “You should find some kind of messenger. Someone who’s not detectable who can go there and pass word.”

“The messenger would have to be someone who doesn’t have fairy magic.”

“Yeah. That’s the hard part, I guess.”

Simone nodded slowly and took a long sip of her drink. “Anyway, Siobhan’s been trying to get her hands on that northern lot so we can get some residential housing erected. Condos or apartments. She hasn’t decided which yet, but I think she’s leaning toward the units being accessible by shared breezeways.”

“The lot is large enough for like, townhouses, though. Can probably get eight or ten of them around a cul-de-sac and still have sufficient distance between the construction and the water.”

“Plans hinge on what we get zoning approval for, but I like the idea of townhouses better, too. On the other side where that gas station currently is, Siobhan wants to wrap around the building of suites that’s on the Hearth’s lot now into an L on that property so we can enclose the lot a bit.”

“What about the original motel building?”

“Still renovating and refreshing. Those would keep on being the non-suite rooms. Lower cost lodging for singles and budget-minded couples.”

“What about dining? If you add that many new rooms, you’ve got to have dining on site.”

“That’d be in the new stem of the L along with the fitness center.” Simone snorted and rolled her eyes. “I can’t believe I stumbled into the hospitality business like this. I never planned on being a hotelier.”

“There’s good money to be made, if you’re careful. And if you
market
the right way.” Dasha waggled her eyebrows.

“You’re a mess.”

“Just trying to help you out. A girl’s gotta keep herself busy.”

“I would have thought you’d have plenty of ways to keep busy. You’ve got a demanding job.”

“But it’s not fun anymore.”

“You never told me that.”

Dasha sighed. “I didn’t want to sound like I as being petty or lazy, but that’s the truth. There are too many memories of Ben there, and plus, the passion I had five years ago dried up. The money isn’t enough to keep me there.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“Take a leave of absence. Help you out for a while, maybe. Get my head straight.”

Simone nodded sagely. “Right. And you think you can do that with Ethan around?”

“I…”
Don’t know.
Dasha didn’t know what to do with Ethan in general, but she knew she wasn’t going to keep running from him when doing so was contrary to everything else she wanted to be doing at the moment.

Yes, he lived at the Hearth. So did Simone. Dasha wasn’t going to avoid the place simply because he was there and she wasn’t ready to commit. She was going to find a way to
deal
, and that meant getting a handle on him. There was no reason she couldn’t talk to him—to see if he was worthy of friendship. She could do that without leading him on. She just needed to get past the fear of trying.

Eldora glided back into the room wearing a grin and with a young woman on her arm. “I figured finding her myself would be easier and faster.”

The family resemblance was there. The pale hair—though the younger woman’s casual, high ponytail had a bit of a purple tinge—the silver eyes, and seemingly iridescent skin. If Dasha hadn’t been clued in about supernatural genetics, she would have assumed they were mother and daughter. If a person didn’t look closely, they wouldn’t see the subtle signs of aging, but Eldora
had
said “granddaughter.”

Dasha scoffed with jealousy.
Elves age damn well.

“Kori, this is Princess Simone of the Sídhe and her friend Dasha Maurice.”

Kori closed one eye and scrunched her nose. “No. Wait.
Siobhan
is Heath’s sister, right?”

“That’s right.”

Kori turned her hands over in apology. “I’m bad with names sometimes, but that’s to be expected. I spent most of the last ten years hold up in a suite of dorms, so yay!”

Oh, another weirdo.

Kori plopped into the armchair at the short end of the table across from Simone and pulled her legs beneath her. She was dressed far more casually than her grandmother, but warmly enough. Her baggy cable-knit sweater fell at mid-thigh, and though her leggings had a couple of holes in them, Dasha suspected the placement was strategic and “fashionable.”

Eldora had a seat on the sofa with Simone. “Kori acts as Gillian’s aide when Gillian is around, so I hope you don’t mind if she relays anything of import to her.”

“I don’t see why that would be a problem,” Simone said.

“Well, good. Now, you said you had some questions about geography?”

“I do. As you know by now, the magic realm is collapsing, and apparently I’ve been tasked with relocating its denizens. Personally, I don’t see how we could possibly integrate so many people who’ve never lived among humans into society.”

“Complete integration may not be immediately possible. Some will need acclimatization. Others may never suitably merge. You have to be prepared to keep them sequestered.”

“But how and where? There’s a finite amount of habitable land on this planet that isn’t already claimed and occupied. We can’t just drop them into the middle of the Australian outback and expect them to thrive. The group that’s there now has been there for ages, and I don’t know if they can absorb many people so soon. The infrastructure isn’t ready.”

“No. You certainly can’t expect that, any more than we expect elves to prosper here on this frozen tundra.”

“But you’ve made this place habitable,” Dasha interjected. “When we exited the portal, we didn’t feel like we were going to get frostbite if we stood still for too long.”

“That’s because the palace is a structure that has its own magic and it generates some warmth that spreads outward.”

Kori turned her head to the side and muttered, “The heat
inside
is what we have problems with.”

“What’s wrong with your heat?” Simone asked.

Eldora sighed. “Nicholas will remedy the mechanical issues when he returns, I’m certain. We’ve had some problems upgrading the old heating methods to modern ones. The furnace isn’t working properly.”

“That’s because the thing runs on magic instead of renewable fuel,” Kori said.

“At the moment, the furnace isn’t equipped for that, dear.”

“Can’t we get someone to do an upgrade? I’m tired of waking up with numb lips.”

“Wait,” Dasha said. “You’re running this palace on magic? There’s one person in particular who’s responsible for the climate control?” That sounded a lot to her like how Fergus used to light the Sídhe tunnels. His magic used to charge them…until he had a charge of his own that backfired and burned him badly.

“Well, three. They take shifts. They do a good enough job with the equipment they’re given, but unfortunately the equipment is inadequate for our purposes.”

“What do you need to do an upgrade?” Simone asked.

“Time and skilled labor,” Kori said. “We can get folks to do the time, in theory, but there’s no one here skilled in engineering, and obviously you understand why we wouldn’t be able to contract an outsider.”

Dasha cut a look to Simone. Simone sipped her whiskey and nodded at Dasha. They were probably thinking the same thing.